And hurricane sandy is such an unusual storm. A once in a generation event. Sam is leading our team coverage from lower manhattan. And, sam, what exactly makes sandy so different and so powerful? Oh, george, there's a huge list about this storm. But first, let's start with the size of this thing. We're going to show you the 3-d satellite. You're going to see the clouds that stretch from well, really, bermuda all the way up the coastline to hudson bay and canada and beyond the arctic circle. With the 3-d view, you can actually see there's been a little center. We've seen some eye in the storm and then it starts to go away. Some people are surprised the storm going north gained a little strength overnight. And it did that because it moved into the warmer waters of the gulf stream. It runs off the eastern seaboard and it gives that storm the little oomph that it needs before tell heads to the coastline. All the experts are still pointing to the storm just to the shoreline around 1:00 this morning, somewhere near the atlantic city area. All morning long, we'll show you damage of the storm. Remember, all of these pictures we show you this morning are with the storm more than 200 miles off the coastline. Reporter: Hurricane sandy is more than 200 miles northeast of cape hatteras, north carolina. Look at this house in rodanthe, north carolina. Parts of it are breaking off in the ocean. North carolina saw more than six inches of rain in the past 24 hours. We got about eight to nine inches of water on our property. Reporter: There are many places like norfolk virginia where it is. 85-mile-per-hour winds are surgeoning to surf. Sandy's winds could be up to 90 miles an hour this afternoon, just short of a category 2. All of this power, all of this damage in sandy are still well offshore. What makes sandy special? This time of year, most tropical storms and hurricanes move east out to sea. Sandy is traveling north and will turn west so its effects will be felt over a large land area. And this storm is monster size. Clouds stretching over 2,000 miles, tropical force winds more than 1,000 miles. As sandy makes its way up the eastern seaboard it's colliding with an arctic cold front from the west. Add in the jet stream and sandy is a superstorm. This storm is going to be destructive, historic and unfortunately, life-threatening. And we've got to talk about wind and rain from this storm, first. Those are first the likely things that will cause the most damage early on in this storm. A quick look at its windfield. We'll show you is this not a coastal system. Watch this thing come onshore and it spreads winds all the way in, look at that, chicago, you're getting winds. Down south, atlanta you'll be feeling winds from the storm. Take a look at the rainfall. Again, this is not just the coastal storm. The heaviest rain is where the storm will come on shore.

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